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Monthly Archives: January 2017

I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Big Magic.” I like books about creativity and fearless living, I have quite a collection and enjoyed her view on the subject.

I consider the life that I live a creative life – I dropped out of college (to later finish my degree in Expressive Art with a personal emphasis on leadership and healing) to wander around Portland, OR and participate in an Artist’s Way group and learn to meditate and feed myself after spending three months wandering around Europe and looking at art. I’ve spent time as a very underpaid professional aerial dancer and been the lead choreographer on a couple of projects. I’ve journaled pretty consistently since I was 10 and have a few poems in print. I consider myself to be crafty and have made most of the plates and bowls in my house during a pottery phase, nearly all the decorations on the Christmas tree, a fair amount of the art on our walls, and a good collection of the stuffed animals that the little one is enjoying right now.

One of the things that Gilbert recommends is following curiosity (rather than passion because passion can be so volatile). So, where is my curiosity today? Playing m’bira and playing marimba. The pesky desire to learn to sing a little better is still lurking – I haven’t scratched that itch yet – though I sing everyday to the little one and have been paying more attention to singing and learning new songs.

Gilbert also recommended calling on the trickster energy when things got sticky (vs. the martyr). I asked David today how he would recommend me trick some of the issues that I have with performing and he recommended performing with a worship team using my shaman energy. I like that answer and want to keep meditating on this because it seems that I end up on stage fairly often and I’d love to make peace with it – even to the point of embracing it as being part of my path right now (reading that feels scary, who would I be without this resistance to performance and the personal drama that ensues?). Kenny Werner, pianist and author of Effortless Mastery writes, “When you don’t try as hard to play good, you play better.” And I imagine that this is part of the trick as well. I have also noticed the last three shows that I’ve done that if I keep my blood sugar stabilized by eating smart snacks often, that helps too. I’ll keep looking into this.